Forum: base
Page 19821
Subject: Mark "The Bird" Fidrych dies....

  Posted by: Donavan - [422523014] Mon, Apr 13, 2009, 18:48
More sad news to report:

R.I.P. Mark
 
1DWetzel
      ID: 278201415
      Tue, Apr 14, 2009, 12:37 		I was too young to really remember the Bird, but it's sad to see someone with such promise get cut down by injuries like he was.




Tasteless joke alert coming:




It's a shame how he died. Bird flu can be an ugly way to go.
 
2Rex Davidson
      Leader
      ID: 037492717
      Wed, Apr 15, 2009, 12:17 		Like Guru, I am old enough to remember Mark "the Bird" Fidrych (see blurb 4/14). There have been many characters in sports but few, if any, like the Bird. He would talk to himself, yell at the ball and engage in all kinds of histrionics but the man could pitch. He didn't get his first start, a win, until May and went on to finish 19-9 with a A.L. leading 2.34 ERA. I think he finished 2nd to Jim Palmer in the Cy Young voting. If he could have got that 20th win somewhere along the way he may have won it even though Palmer seemingly owned the Cy Young in the early and mid-70s.

He pitched a few more years but injuries kept him from achieving much. It may have just been his 15 minutes as Guru noted, but what a 15 minutes it was. Tiger fans would dress up in Big Bird costumes and dance in the aisles on days he started. I even think one of his televised starts scored one of the highest nertwork broadcast ratings of the era. And that would have been a Saturday afternoon!